


Ice

by Dogsled



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, First Time, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sexual Content, Slash sex, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-31
Updated: 2007-07-31
Packaged: 2018-09-30 11:10:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: My rewrite of the (SPOILER) scene...but inevitably not going to be the last one. I didn't have any idea that it was going to be this long, but as I approached it I knew I could do it, and made it exactly 10,000 words; and hopefully it doesn't lose anything for sitting to that standard. I am...so pleased to get this done. My first post D-H fic, and obviously that means SPOILERS everybody.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [HP Fandom](http://fanlore.org/wiki/HP_Fandom_\(archive\)), which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [HP Fandom collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hpfandom/profile).

It was critical that everything went perfectly, and there were so many potential flaws in Severus’ plan; but he hadn’t expected Potter to be so excruciatingly stupid. Even when he was doing exactly as Severus had desired – and to be honest, known – that he would do, he could not help that stabbing fury that pounded in his gut at the very sight of him. Lily Evans had died for this boy, and he was pathetic. 

Without sense, or even a spell to silence his tread or cover his tracks, he followed the doe – a Patronus, and therefore cast by a wizard – through the trees, into the darkest part of the wood. He showed no heed about him; cast no glances to the trees that might have afforded the best cover for someone who would do him harm, nor looked behind him to see if his footsteps were being followed.

Upon reaching the glade, Potter had done an even more stupid thing. He had at first – to Snape’s muffled amusement – tried to summon the sword to him. Sure enough he had failed – but then Potter had simply seemed to have given up. He could have recovered the sword with only the slightest affectation of logic or intelligence. He could not summon the sword, no – but the water around it could be frozen, and the sword could be lifted as part of the ice, and no false sense of chivalry need be entertained.

No; Potter had decided - in a no doubt debilitating bout of Gryffindor logic – that the only way to recover said sword was to tear off all his clothes and leap straight into the ice cold water. How this was supposed to help, Severus had absolutely no idea; nor did the sight of the teen’s gangly limbs and stubborn lack of body hair warm him. There was no amusement in watching Potter, knock kneed and too short for his age, shaking like a first year in nothing but his underwear, knowing just what the idiot was about to do.

None the less, Severus felt an intense surge of empathy for the boy as he fell into the icy depth. Yes…yes, he could certainly feel that. Shivering, he pulled his robes a little tighter to himself and waited.

The longer he waited, the more fearful he became that something terrible was happening. Idiot that he was, Snape knew quite well that Potter could swim – he had watched the Tasks of Harry’s Fourth Year with a feeling of thorough insecurity: his Mark had been growing in intensity by the day and yet as Harry fought dragons and merpeople he had been powerless to intervene. He had wanted to intervene so very badly, though he would never have allowed himself to recognise that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach at the time. 

Now that same sick feeling was filling him. Harry was not coming up. There was nobody else here; nobody to stop Potter suffocating below the ice; nobody apart from him. He hesitated only a moment longer, and then plunged from his hiding place, taking the clearing in two long strides and skidding into the snow beside the place where Harry had gone in.

The boy he pulled from the ice was unrecognisable. He looked so young, his skin blue, his eyes wide and frozen. White hands were clutching at his throat, frozen where they lay, clutching a chain that was suffocating as surely as if he had inhaled water. Only Potter looked dead. There was no life in his stiff form, which was as white as the deep snow in which they were both entrenched. No…no, he couldn’t be too late. Dumbledore had already told him Potter’s fate. If that was so…

Sectumsempra was not an easy spell to use; not in close range, nor on such an exact position; certainly not when his own hands were shaking insufferably – but it was Severus’ spell, and if anyone could perfect the use of it, it would be him. The locket sprang away, falling into the snow, and Potter’s lungs suddenly filled with air, his mouth opening wide, his eyes closing tightly.

On his second unsteady breath, Harry began to shake from head to toe. Severus could see it; the strained agony in the twitching of his form, could feel the flesh against his fingertips like Hogwarts’ stones in midwinter; unlike skin at all: ice cold and grating to the touch. Potter was alive by some miracle, but by how much? Apparently not enough to force his eyes back open, or to loosen the grip on the sword, which was clutched still in one glacial fist.

Severus was careful to scoop up the wand and the locket that lay beside Harry before he lifted the boy up; and as he did so Harry’s head inclined as forward as his paralysed spine would allow, signalling that unconsciousness had come, and Severus needed to hurry. Potter was too cold, snow sticking to his wet body in clumps, breath coming with more difficulty, and his heartbeat gave the impression that he was circulating mud instead of blood, so laborious was its work.

At least, Severus considered, as he slipped the things into his pocket and drew a heavy old fogwatch from where it lay against his chest, he had precautionary measures; measures that could not have been established were he not the Dark Lord’s right hand man.

The clock was not ticking – it was a Muggle watch, after all, and didn’t work in any of the places where Severus might have needed it. Instead it was bewitched. Severus checked it against the watch on his wrist; the one inscribed with the name of his mother’s family ‘Prince’, with tiny little silver stars instead of numbers, which glinted and glittered in the reflection from the snow in the moonlight. 

Carefully, Severus set the time, though his hands were shaking, and every second was critical. He turned the clock to the right place, and then pressed his hand to Harry’s; palm to palm, and waited as the old clock began to tick once more. It seemed like too long, but eventually it came, as the time met the silver hand of the ‘alarm’, which instead activated the portkey that sent them both back across England in a sickening manner, and deposited them both on the floor in Severus’ front room, Gryffindor’s sword finally clattering to the ground.

Spinner’s End was abandoned. He hadn’t been here for four months, and the place was inhospitable. The front window had broken, and snow had been blown in over the room. It was lucky, Severus considered, that he had protected his beautiful books with strong Impervius charms. 

Harry was going blue again, and Severus worked quickly. His stores were still intact, and a pepper up potion came first, warming him through. For the first time in too long, Severus lit the fire in his grate which burst into flame almost with joy, filling the whole room with blissful heat. Severus shed his own wet, cold robes haphazardly, then pointed his wand up at the ceiling, summoning every thin, moth-eaten blanket in the house, wrapping each of them around Harry in turn.

He couldn’t say why he bothered. Potter would live to face Voldemort no matter what he did, wouldn’t he? He simply had to. Hell, he could run him through with Gryffindor’s sword right now, and it probably wouldn’t even make a dent… Perhaps not: even Potter couldn’t survive that. All Severus knew was that the boy was still too cold. The potion couldn’t make a dent on that chill. 

After forcefeeding him with yet another Pepper-Up Potion, despite the lack of movement in Harry’s limp, useless body, Severus bundled him up, blankets and all, and carried up him up the stairs – or rather, dragged him, because the boy was almost as tall as he was, and simply too heavy to carry. 

Severus fell through the door into the bathroom, barely getting his feet below him in time to stop himself from crashing down onto the tiled floor, Potter and all. With a great effort, he half threw – half pushed Potter into the bathtub, then pulled the blankets back out from underneath him, leaving him shivering and almost naked in the bottom of the enamel coated basin.

Shivering… Severus’ eyes rose instantly, and found bright green peering at him straight out of the middle of that white, gaunt face. Obviously, Potter couldn’t find the strength to speak, or he would be suffering the youth’s pathetic insults and whining on top of everything else. When he turned on both taps, and filled the bath with water that was room temperature, he did not hear a single word, but he knew that Potter was just watching, even if he didn’t dare to meet those accusing green eyes again.

Little by little, Severus added hot water to the cold that surrounded Potter, warming him through without burning every nerve of his body at once. Steadily he saw the boy’s colour returning, the flush in his cheeks, offsetting the green of those eyes… No. He mustn’t look Potter in the face; not now.

But where else was there to look. His eyes went down, and as they did so, he suddenly found water in his face, his hair dripping, and looked up to see Potter looking at him even more ferociously than before – although obviously speech had not returned. He arched an eyebrow, almost instinctively, and this, apparently, was cause for amusement, because – well, he thought it was a laugh – Potter hacked magnificently through his abused throat, and brought his hand up to cover his mouth, grimacing as though in pain.

Severus moved closer, peering at the deep incision that ran all the way around Potter’s throat; bevelled and ripped: the locket had clearly been getting tighter and tighter, ripping at the flesh, throttling Potter. It could have done far more damage. Severus glanced briefly towards his pocket, but thought no more of it for the moment. If he paid it no heed, then it may not try to do to him what it had failed to do to Potter.

Leaning back, Severus drew his wand, pointing it at Potter. The instinctive reaction of the youth was instant. He leapt out of the bath, crumpled no doubt painfully to the floor on the other side of it, on limbs too numb to take his weight, and gave another strangled cry. Apparently this was all he could do in the way of defending himself; a dismal attempt. 

Severus circled around the bath and knelt beside the lump where he had fallen, and began to weave his wand at Potter’s throat, singing softly. The spell was one he had learnt from his mother; but it was common enough. In the form of a nursery rhyme, it healed minor flesh wounds, but no deeper. It could not manage nerve damage, or injuries made from curses or cursed objects – and it did not make any difference to Potter’s wound.

Scowling, Severus leant back, appraising Potter for a moment. He would need something a little more powerful than a simple spell for that wound; and it would scar, but Potter had his fair share of curse scars already, did he not? Those green eyes still blazed back, daring him to make some comment, he was sure. But Severus wasn’t ready to tease Potter quite yet. Not yet. He wanted to know that Potter really was going to make it before he set in with the vitriol. This once, he would surprise him; there were plenty of ways in which he was about to do that.

With magic this time, Severus put Harry back in the bath, then stood up and made his way to the door, summoning his flask – a very, very special flask, which Dumbledore had left him, in a way. Dumbledore, who had known that curse damage – major curse damage – could only be healed by phoenix tears, and who had known of his impending death, and in turn, the grief which this would cause his beloved phoenix, had set it in readiness, just for him. When Severus had become headmaster, the doors to Dumbledore’s office readily opened to him, and there stood Fawkes’ cage, and underneath, collected over the days that the phoenix had cried, had been a great flask full of the rarest treasure; pearled and iridescent phoenix tears. Just for Severus.

Or rather, perhaps, just for Potter, for it was Potter that needed them now. “If you make me waste a single tear, Potter,” he warned, speaking for the first time since this ordeal had begun, “I shall make you regret it.”

Carefully Severus dropped in the pipette, his eyes still on Potter, drew out just enough of the precious liquid and put the rest of the phoenix tears safely aside. Then he stepped towards Potter, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, looking quite threatening in nothing but his white shirt and black trousers, he was sure – or perhaps slightly ridiculously, depending on how ill Potter was feeling by now.

To his credit, Potter only briefly hesitated - and that was until he identified exactly what Severus had borne towards him - before allowing the tears to drop one by one onto his wound.

There was not even a scar, as Severus had suspected that there might be, Potter was good as new, and sadly, this meant that he had recovered his voice to, and his ability to breathe steadily, for Potter took in a huge breath, and then grabbed him by the hair and pulled him under the hot bathwater. Severus inhaled before he knew what was good for him, filling his lungs with suffocating water, and Potter wouldn’t let go. He fought, until the hand in his hair simply couldn’t hold him any longer, and it grabbed for him fruitlessly as he pulled away, falling away from the bath and coughing up water from his tortured lungs, crawling to put a safe distance between himself and the clearly psychopathic Potter.

When Severus recovered, a good ten minutes later, still clutching his throat in pain, he saw that Potter was still sitting in the bathtub, though he had clearly been working to get sensation back in his limbs since then, and froze when Severus looked up with one leg suspended out of the bathwater, and his foot arched in mid-flex.

“You’ve got until I can move to explain everything, so you’d better get started,” Potter remarked, in a voice as clear as bells, and still as irritating as Severus remembered it being, though it had been more than half a year.

“Is that a fact?” he tried to say, but it ended up an uncomfortable croak, and he glared at Potter angrily, and flicked his tongue over the end of the empty pipette. It helped, a little – he could speak a little clearer when he was done. “Perhaps you should have considered drowning me after you’d been given the explanation.”

“I wasn’t trying to drown you, Snape, I was trying to wash your hair.”

Severus lifted his wand sharply, pointing it at Potter, his eyes narrowed. It was at times like this that he was reminded intensely of his being James Potter’s son – not Lily Evans’, as he usually tried to convince himself. “If you don’t watch your tongue, Potter, I shall remove it. I don’t imagine you need to be able to speak to defeat the Dark Lord, and I must admit that I preferred you silent.”

Potter just glowered back at him as Severus heated the water again with another flick of his wand. Did he explain everything to Potter now? No…he didn’t think he could look him in the eye if that was the case. Potter would scoff at him, say unpleasant, derogatory things. How, then; if he could not simply tell him everything?

What was most important? Potter had to know about Dumbledore; that was where all of this anger came from, was it not? That and the fact that he had betrayed his parents…but maybe Potter would not ask, and Severus would not have to explain the deep, terrible loss he felt at being told that the Dark Lord was going after the Potters. He drew his wand, pointed it at Harry, and said, clearly “Legilimens.”

Whatever had been happening to Potter in the last six months had either made a considerable difference, or Potter truly didn’t want anyone in his mind for once. Snape felt the tendrils of Potter’s mind repelling him, and he let them; let Potter thrust back so hard that he penetrated his mind like a knife through soft butter, and guided him, just as he always guided the Dark Lord, straight to the memory that Severus wanted him to see.

When Snape let his vice like grip on Potter’s mind recede, Potter seemed pinned against the bath, head as far away from Snape as possible, both hands gripping the silver handles so tightly that the knuckles were once again white.

There seemed to be nothing to say between them. The silence proceeded, and then when Severus was sure that Potter was shell-shocked, and must need a potion to fix him, his cracked, inelegant voice rang out in the grubby bathroom.

“There was more, wasn’t there? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Pardon me?” Severus asked, lowering his wand finally, looking at Potter, trying to look confused instead of terrified.

This seemed to incense Potter all the more. The boy moved forwards, leant towards Snape and pulled a face so ferocious and inhuman that Severus had to do a double take. “What did he tell you when you went back to his office?! What are you keeping from me, Snape?!”

Snape hesitated, closed his eyes… Before he could prepare himself he was on his back with an intense pain where he’d hit the floor with his head, and a naked, wet Potter pinning him to the floor tiles. His own wand was pointed at his throat, and those green eyes, blazing and hot somehow, were looking down at him imperiously. He felt rather than heard it, but he wasn’t prepared, and his head hurt, and somehow he wanted Potter to know too damned much to resist.

“Legilimens.”

Potter was ruthless. Severus could have resisted, but it all bled from him as though from an open wound, and Potter drank it up like ambrosia. His memories – every single one precious – Lily and Dumbledore and Voldemort’s soul; all were drained from him without the slightest hesitation. Everything…

Severus watched again; not helpless, but no longer resisting - for he found he simply could not look into those green eyes and fight back – as a young version of himself, transcribed spidery black notes in his own potion handbook, and watched across the table as each word he wrote appeared for Lily to read in her own, guiding her to excel in potions, while he himself appeared mediocre on purpose; always the gallant gentleman. 

When had his life taken this turn? His mind had been poisoned and abused. Being sorted into Slytherin had destroyed him; destroyed his every chances of happiness. He remembered long ago promising that he would never ever call Lily a Mudblood. And then he had taken Death Eaters as friends and it had undone every moral he had. He had been reduced to a slobbering bully, like them, hadn’t he? Was he still a slobbering bully?

“No, you’re not.”

Potter’s voice was clear, and louder than it had ever been before, because he was leaning over him, looking down at him with that pitying understanding that Severus instantly understood as being what he had feared the most in regard to this situation. He had expected to be dead or gone when Potter learnt the truth – not nose to nose with him, looking into those eyes that he loved so much, and feeling as though there were no greater suffering than this.

“I don’t need your pity.” Severus’ voice was gruff, his eyes narrowed. He could have been older than his thirty-eight years in that moment. 

“You’re being obstinate,” Potter said, and met his eyes without hesitation, forcing Snape to shy away again. What was Potter doing, daring to look at him like that – with those eyes? Knowing what they meant to him?

Severus changed the subject. “Is this a new method of prolonged torture for me to suffer before my inevitable death, or do you simply enjoy thrusting your naked body against my own, Potter?”

Clearly this was the correct thing to say, although inevitably not in the way that Severus had intended. He had expected Potter to be appalled, but instead he looked plain embarrassed. Either way, it got Potter off him instantly.

Now there was a true uncomfortable silence between them. Potter was in the midst of digesting the information that he had carelessly ripped from Severus’ mind. He was going to die, and it had been that way from the very beginning. Severus Snape had loved his mother – possessively, jealously and yes, even foolishly. Snape had been on his side all along. Severus knew what Potter must be fighting with, years of misinformation; house loyalty; pure prejudice – oh yes, for Potter had become as prejudiced as the Dark Lord had. Were not all Slytherins inherently evil? He had to overcome much, but to his credit, he did so much sooner than Severus could have expected of him. It could have been measured in seconds – but perhaps it was more accurately measured in heartbeats.

“There’s so much…so much I haven’t done. I don’t… Why did I do all that stupid homework if I was going to die anyway?!”

Snape saw the exact moment that the Pepper Up Potion ran out; Potter’s face fell, and then his knees crumpled beneath him and he fell to the ground; or rather, into Severus’ arms.

“You knew it’d end this way, Potter. Don’t pretend you didn’t.” Severus said, trying to heave Potter back to his feet, and managing, but only with incredible effort. He began the arduous task of dragging himself and Potter’s carcass into the other room, but Potter was still putting up a verbal fight.

“I knew I was going to die, I just didn’t think I’d die now,” he said, angrily. “And it’s not fair!”

“No,” Severus agreed, lowering his head in despair. “It’s not fair; as I told Albus. None of it is at all fair. I’ve spent seventeen years looking after you, and now I have to watch you d-die.”

Potter looked frightened when Severus’ voice cracked, but he wasn’t nearly as frightened as Severus was. He bit his tongue as they fell into the dark bedroom, and he forced Potter down over his shoulder and onto the bed, barely keeping himself upright, his white hands clutching the footboard of the bed tightly. It was as cold in this room as it had been downstairs, but a simple warming charm relieved the chill, and kept the silence between them friendly. A single streetlight, old, with a dim lamp, cast a chilling glow on the room.

“You really loved her, didn’t you?”

Severus had been expecting that. It had been bound to come eventually, but he was still surprised that Harry had gotten over the inevitability of his death quickly enough. It made that particular question all the more bizarre. No…there was something else in his voice, wasn’t there? What the hell was Potter really asking?

“You know the answer to that question, Potter. So why ask me?”

“Oh…you know…” Potter was insufferable. 

Severus glared at him as best as he could, and sat down at the end of the bed, as far away from the youth as he could manage. “No, I do not know, Potter.”

“That’s because I was being evasive,” Harry countered, folding his arms obstinately. And people wondered why he gave the brat such a hard time?!

“Your days are numbered, Potter. In my opinion, this warrants a little more decisiveness on your behalf. Are you to die without even comprehending the depths of your own mind?”

“Stop it!” Harry had, with some effort, apparently, pulled himself upright on the bed, and his hands had dropped into the thin blankets, closed into fists around them. “Stop talking about me like I’m already dead! I’m not! I’d be a bit more bloody sympathetic if you were dying!”

Severus raised one sleek black eyebrow and leant forwards. “How do you know that I’m not?” He was careful not to meet Harry’s eyes, and this time, for once, the boy noticed.

“Look at me!” There was a pause as Snape complied, and Harry narrowed his green eyes, intensifying the beam like a laser. “I’ll walk happily to my death when the time comes, but right now, Snape, I have things to do. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, already!”

“Sorry for myself?” Severus straightened, spluttering indignantly. 

“That’s right,” Harry said, and lay back onto the lumpy pillows again, his gaze settling on Snape with fresh intensity. “And if you don’t even realize that then maybe you’re not as clever as I always thought you were.”

Severus thought he had an idea of what Harry was speaking about, but he wasn’t entirely sure, and wanted to know irrefutably. “Why don’t you enlighten me?” he drawled, reclining against the straight footboard in such a way as to conceal his weakness from Potter – he had not quite recovered from being drowned, but thankfully, neither had Potter.

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself. This whole damn thing is you feeling sorry for yourself – oh, and jealous. Stupid arse.” Potter seemed to contemplate what to say, and Snape listened, horrified, as the boy not just began to speak, but began to lecture, to pour out more words than he had ever heard him speak before. “You know…if you’d just tried a little harder then she might have fallen in love with you. You took the easy option didn’t you? 

You chose Slytherin because you didn’t see any of those good traits in you: you weren’t particularly brave, or clever, or loyal, were you, Snape? The hat promised power to anyone who went to Slytherin, and wasn’t that better for you in the long run? With power, then my mother was yours. But you were so wrong… You could have been anything! You were brave. You are clever. I think you’re more than a little loyal; if not to Dumbledore or V--” he stopped himself before Snape could intervene, to his immense relief – he had never been particularly enamored to this one of Potter’s many faults – “You-Know-Who, then certainly to her memory.”

Severus narrowed his eyes, tilting his head up. “I would never have been welcome in another house,” he interrupted, and Potter shook his head, smiling.

“Slytherin changed you, Snape – even I could see that. You were such a sweet little boy, you were heartbreaking.” At this Severus scoffed, but Potter would not let him disrupt him again. “After you decided to join Slytherin you changed…and you turned everyone against you and” now he had to raise his voice to continue, because Severus’ outrage became so fierce, “I KNOW IT’S WRONG. What they did to you, Severus, because of that…it was wrong… The line between houses – the prejudice – I know it’s wrong. But they didn’t, no more than I did when I was in my first year…or even last year. I was as much an arrogant bigot as my father.”

Potter couldn’t keep going at this point, because Severus let out a laugh so loud and raucous that the whole bed rocked and thumped against the wall, knocking off the top layer of dust.

“Yes,” Potter said, quietly. “I admit it.”

It took a long, long time for Snape to stop laughing, and when he did, there were tears in his eyes, and he was looking at Potter as though he had never seen him before. This wasn’t exactly a lie, because Potter had come to the conclusion that, having a death sentence, he had nothing further to lose. Already he had come to terms with the fact that either before or after his death, he would be humiliated by Voldemort. It was far less humiliating to announce this new wisdom himself.

“His being arrogant and cruel should have been your opening, Snape…but you messed up, didn’t you, long before you realized what loving Lily really meant. By choosing Slytherin you thrust the two of you too far apart, and you know that, don’t you? You believed she could never love you, because you didn’t see your own qualities; only your faults – and you forced everyone else to see your faults too. You feel sorry for yourself because…because you know that you could have had happiness, and you have only yourself to blame – no matter how much you try to incriminate my father, or Sirius, or even thrust those incriminations freshly onto me.

Isn’t it true that you spent years imagining that I was him? Putting his crimes onto me, and then willing me to be expelled for them, like you felt he should have been? Anything to get me out of your sight, so you didn’t have to remember what you’d done – the mistakes you’d made in your life.”

Now Potter scoffed, lifted his chin arrogantly and said “Stupid old man,” and Severus’ temper broke. Potter was too damned close to the truth. He moved forwards, hand going for Potter’s throat, but the boy closed his hand over his wrist before he could reach him, twisted in such a manner as to force Snape to move after the twist in his arm, crashing down over Potter’s knees. Potter changed hands, kept turning, pinning Snape uncomfortable in place, so that were he to move, his arm would break.

“You messed up, Snape…but that’s all gone now. She’s gone. I will be soon. You had such promise, but you threw it all away for power. Well now you’ve got it – Headmaster of Hogwarts, huh? Congratulations. You-Know-Who’s right hand man. What does that mean? It means you’re going to be even deader than I am when this is all over. They’ll throw you through the veil after Sirius, that is, if you survive being that close to You-Know-Who for much longer. Remember what he did to Malfoy? What do you have to show for it? You’ve never even been loved!”

Potter seemed to realize what he’d said and fell quiet, because Snape had stopped struggling, and there was something else in the agony of his expression that made Potter’s grip on him soften. “It’s not fair, is it?” he said, softly, trying to mend the wound that he had freshly torn open. “Fate gives us this momentous task – you, the greatest spy there ever was, and I, to die for a world I’ll never get to see – and it wants it all without reward. I’ll never finish do my NEWTS, or get to marry Ginny, or have children, or become an Auror…I’ll never get to fly a kite, or…or go on holiday, or feel someone’s skin against my own in the dark.”

Now the grip on Severus’ throat weakened, and the hand went to Potter’s face instead, covering those green eyes, but unable to hold the tears that trickled from underneath the folded fingers, burning their paths down unnaturally flushed cheeks. Lily was crying…and Severus had not seen those eyes cry for so long… At first he didn’t understand why he was moving, closing the distance between them, but then his hands found Potter’s wrists, and pried the wet palms from his face to reveal, glittering beneath, weeping emeralds.

“D-don’t!” Potter gasped, but Severus held him as tightly as he could, so that he simply could not resist, looking down into those eyes, watching as Potter cried with abandon. Beautiful, beautiful eyes, filled with the lethal green of the Avada Kedavra curse that had killed them. Severus had killed them; may as well have cast the Killing Curse with his own hand, and yet here they were, shining – crying – very much alive.

For what felt like hours he watched them, opening and closing, because Potter couldn’t bring himself to trust his eyes to be shut, knowing that Snape was right there, inches from him, looking into his eyes, drinking in his pain – the sight of them full of emotion. Potter’s agony was so very real, and he cried more, simply because Snape was looking back at him, absorbing ever tear into his memory; asking for perdition from the ghosts of his past.

“We’d all be dead anyway.”

Potter’s voice was detached. Snape was not looking into his face, just his eyes. The words came as though from far away. It took him a moment to register what they meant, and the tears were drying up by then. Potter was speaking again. “It was worst last time. There was something Sirius said… You couldn’t be sure, and if you came home, the Dark Mark could be over your house, and you knew what you’d find inside… Everyone was terrified, and without something to change it, it was never going to end. We changed that – my parents died, and it stopped – for thirteen blissful years nobody died. If they hadn’t died then, then we’d have died since, and more people besides. I’m going to end it. What’s my life beside the difference I can make…”

Still, Severus knew how much terrible pain there was in him. This Gryffindor attitude could not completely hide the scared child that lay beneath. Potter may have come to terms with what he needed to do, but what he’d miss was still clearly nagging at him. Severus was not entirely sure what to do, so he reached out and carded, clumsily, through Potter’s raven hair. It was so different from Lily’s. He ignored this difference and met those eyes again bravely.

“You, at least, have some warning. It is more than the rest of us have, Potter. You may choose when, something that we mundane will never know.”

Potter didn’t seem to be listening to a word that he was saying – his eyes were turned upwards, looking at the inside of Severus’ wrist; a black serpent’s head writhing from underneath his sleeve, looking down at him longingly, but he did not pull away; the sensation of long fingers in his hair seemed to have stayed him. He looked confused.

“What are you doing?”

Severus wasn’t entirely sure. He couldn’t answer the question, and Potter didn’t seem to have anything else to say on the matter. Perhaps he understood it even more than Severus did, for he reached up with one hand, and Severus realized how small it was, even now with Potter approaching manhood; how much like Lily’s. 

The hand closed, gently around Severus’ wrist, and he gasped in surprise. Ice cold fingers slid over his skin, underneath the sleeve, closed over the black mark that lay there. Nobody had ever touched that mark with bare skin – that Potter would dare to under the circumstances was astounding, but it was nothing to what he was feeling now. It was as though something was sinking into his skin through the black tattoo, spreading out through him, freezing his veins…no, not cold – it was blazing heat, like the burn of touching frozen metal.

Severus’ fingers closed on the raven hair, and he screamed as the ice fire went through him, all the way through him, and then… The pain had stopped, suddenly, only now he was lying once more in Potter’s lap, and the boy was gently stroking the hair back out of his eyes, looking down at him in a sickeningly devoted fashion. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Potter, and really, this seemed most unreasonable, considering the way that Potter was looking at him. “I don’t know what happened either.”

“A fascinating explanation,” Severus chided, and tried to move, but found that he simply could not. This was unfortunate, because Potter seemed to hold no inclination at all to alleviate his embarrassing situation. Now his fingers had moved from his hairline, and were instead working their way around his mouth – tickling – and the urge to bite each one of them off in turn was difficult to resist.

“What in Salazar’s name are you doing, Potter?”

“Why Salazar’s name?” Potter asked, leaning closer. “You’re no more Slytherin than I am…” and then he paused, and said, “Okay…bad comparison.” But he didn’t stop his ministrations.

His body was simply not working; it was as though Potter had frozen every vein in his body, forcing him to stay absolutely still. It allowed him to touch at will…although why he would do such a thing was beyond Severus’ ability to comprehend; his mind even seemed to have slowed down.

“Don’t change the subject, Potter. What the hell are you doing?”

Potter smiled, an unpleasantly Lily like smile, and then leant down closer, so that they were almost nose to nose. “I realized something when you were looking into my eyes,” he said, softly, and Severus interrupted with ‘not your eyes’, which Potter stubbornly ignored and went on, “I’m going to miss out on so much…but there is something that you can do for me. It won’t make it better, but it will be something off my list.”

Slow or not, Severus’ mind picked up immediately on what Potter was suggesting. “Me? You cannot be serious. I am under no allusions, Potter…even if I did aspire to you…dubious persuasion.”

Potter blinked back at him; clearly the exact phrasing that Severus had chosen had been confusing enough to give him pause for thought, but now Potter’s unbelievably keen mind had made sense of the words, and was moving on. “I’m not gay,” Potter said, which didn’t scan with Severus, but he did not interrupt. “Come on, who else am I going to ask? Hermione? Ron?” He laughed.

The hand that was caressing him stopped, only for a moment, and Potter’s thumb slid into his mouth, making Severus’ tongue recoil from the coppery taste of his skin. Now Severus couldn’t speak, but Potter was talking again – he was remarkably good at that. “Just look into my eyes,” he said, “and pretend. Then we’ll both get what we want, won’t we?”

It was shocking – almost…almost ridiculous. Potter wanted him to pretend that he was his mother? It sounded almost sick. Severus couldn’t do that, even if he’d been willing to; even if he’d wanted to. Potter was Potter, not Evans, certainly not Lily. He was too much his father, no matter what traits and eyes he had inherited from his maternal side.

Now the thumb slid from his mouth, trailed down over his chin, leaving a wet path, and he could speak again. “You could never be Lily to me, Potter,” he hissed, trying to put some kind of the old vehemence into his voice. It didn’t work, not with Potter’s hand wandering down over his throat.

“You wouldn’t dare do this if I could move,” Severus snarled, and Potter just smiled and ignored him, undoing the buttons of his white shirt one at a time. He didn’t seem to care how utterly appalled Severus was at his treatment, not until Severus shouted “You have no right!” as Potter bared his chest to the warm air.

That was when Potter stopped completely, and sat up, looking straight down at Severus accusingly, and narrowing his eyes. “Yes I do,” he said, and the bitterness in his voice was like a knife. “You’re the reason I have no parents. Good of the world or not, Snape, you owe me…”

“Blackmail or rape, Potter? Perhaps you are more like him than you dare to admit.”

“Shut up,” Harry snapped, glaring down at him, and then moving closer. “Why do you have to make this into a fight? I’m going to die! Isn’t that punishment enough? Please, Snape…”

“Sir.”

“I’m not at school any more, headmaster or not.” Harry was smiling again; clearly the return of Severus’ snark felt like a return to normality. “But if you truly want me to call you ‘headmaster’, then I’d be quite happy to make believe with you.”

Of all the terrifying, bald faced things that Potter had said to him, this was by far the most out of character, and the most unnerving. Severus glared at him, but couldn’t think of anything to say on such short notice, which sadly left Potter open to say whatever popped into his mind.

“Oh, headmaster…I was so looking forward to our practical examination. I’ve been practicing for months.”

It was too much, Severus laughed, unable to restrain himself until he finally managed to say, “Potter, I swear, that is the most disturbing thing I have ever heard you say.”

“You’re one to talk!” Now it was Potter’s turn to laugh. “Magical defence of the mind against external penetration,” he quoted, green eyes fixed on Snape. “Come on! I was fifteen!” he added, when Snape narrowed his eyes. “My mind wasn’t on learning, and you totally said the wrong thing!”

Severus tried to look indignant, but failed miserably. He snorted, and then laughed, despite himself. “No wonder you failed to defend your mind, Potter. You were clearly…distracted.”

“Not by you!” Potter protested, but it was too late – even laying unable to move, Severus had recovered his wit from wherever he had dropped it, and a simple raised eyebrow was all that was needed to silence Potter instantly.

Severus didn’t need to add to it, but the moment was begging, and Potter was now wasting time; time that neither of them had, if Severus were to return to Hogwarts, and Potter was to return to his friends, both unnoticed. “You were in the middle of something, I believe…”

Now Potter at least had the decency to flush, and Severus pressed his advantage. “These things work more efficiently, I believe, when both parties are capable of independent movement…”

Silence stretched between them again, one looking down at the other, and the other looking back fearlessly. “Not blackmail or rape then?” Potter asked, and his voice sounded small and young.

Severus smiled, but said nothing, waiting for Harry to make his own decision. Clearly he fought briefly with the fact that Severus was an incredible liar – far outstripping almost everyone else he knew; ‘almost’ being that Dumbledore was still a better liar even than him. Finally, however, Potter seemed to decide, and with a flourish of his wand, freed Severus from the curse that had been holding him still.

“Very good,” Severus congratulated, and was surprised when those too-small-for-his-age-and-gender hands fell onto his face, and Potter fell after them, as though he too had been cursed, and they’d been drawn together like magnets. Soft lips fell on his own frightened ‘o’ shaped mouth, began relentlessly to devour him, even as he lay still in utter shock. What was Potter doing? There was a tongue in his mouth.

Finally Severus managed to get control of himself, and spluttered, brought his hands up between them and dug his nails into hard shoulders, forcing Potter to withdraw, staring up at him in absolute horror. “No kissing!” he spat, and couldn’t help the fear in his voice as he said it, which only made Harry look vindicated. Vindicated! After what he’d done?! It was abuse! Taking liberties!

“You’ve never been kissed, have you?”

Now that was an unpleasant thing to say: worse still that it was true – but cruelty to hear it from that mouth. Damn it. His first kiss had been stolen by Potter, and now the worthless wretch was looking down at him, looking so thoroughly amused that it was absolutely unreal, not to mention incredibly unfair.

“If that was kissing,” he now hissed, trying to redeem at least a little of his honour, “Then I am glad not to have experienced it thus far.”

“But you’re…you’re thirty seven!”

“And I claim no beauty or charm, and never have, Potter. There is a reason why men like I fail at love.”

Potter barked another laugh, sounding horribly like his godfather for a moment, but Severus ignored it. “Cause you never tried! Look at Malfoy! That pug Parkinson! Even looking like they do… Look at me, I’m hardly handsome either.”

“Piffle,” Severus hissed, but clearly had nothing more to say on the subject. Potter, however, had strayed back to kissing, and Severus tuned back in to the sound of his voice to hear ‘really should show you what you’ve been missing all this time, crotchety old git.’ 

It was too late: lips were on his own again, softer than before, and Potter’s hands were holding down his own wrists in such a way as to disengage any strength that he might possibly have brought to bear against him. Green eyes were almost closed, but Severus could see the tantalizing glimpse of green blurred in his own vision, and it was all he needed to succumb. He opened his mouth to the gentle touch, and Potter’s tongue…no, damn it – 

If he kept thinking of Potter as Potter, then he would never, ever survive this: Potter could very well be James Potter, as it had been when Severus was at school, but he couldn’t think of this boy as James, as so many did. He’d go insane. No; for the moment at least he would need to have his own identity, and so he must be Harry –

Harry’s tongue was flicking experimentally against his own lips; his mouth was warm and hot, moving against Severus’ own – mirroring what Severus suddenly realized were his own movements. He was kissing back, and it felt somehow terribly satisfying. He knew it was wrong – oh so very wrong, in so many ways – but he could not resist. Harry had cast his spell around him; used all of his mother’s talent with charms – those bewitching eyes – and trapped Severus as surely as if he were an Acromanula weaving its web.

Harry had slid free of the tangle of motheaten grey blankets somehow, and hard, fire-ice skin pressed against his own chest, and now Harry was above him, pressing him down into the old mattress so that the bedsprings creaked ominously, kissing him harder, if there was such a thing. Those lips bruised his own, and that tongue - previously so soothing – now writhed and wrestled with his own in a ferocious dance.

A groan tore itself from Severus’ throat at the first opportunity, sucking in a huge gasp of warm air before the lips assailed his own once more. Harry’s hands had moved down between them. There was no need for permission any longer, just mindless fumbling; those small hands working him free of his trousers with what seemed like great effort, because of the critical neatness of Severus’ work robes, even to the last button and sash.

Harry’s legs still seemed to be trapped within the endless writhing mass of blankets, as he attempted to free them, Severus shifted on the bed, self consciously removing his trousers, double socks and winter boots. By the time he was done, Harry was free, and watching him, his expression somewhere between intense desire and disgust. It was the strangest thing that Severus had ever seen.

“I get top.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, finally arranging himself into a more comfortable position. It was incredibly difficult to effectively sardonic-glare Harry while wearing nothing but his underwear, and apparently this sentiment did not go unnoticed, because Harry laughed, which Severus believed to be entirely unfair.

“You are living in a bizarre fantasy world if you think that I would ever allow that, Potter.”

Now Harry only looked more gleeful, and Severus could tell that he had some kind of trump card – something that only a Potter would think of. “In case you didn’t notice, my Patronus is a stag, and yours is a doe. So I get top.” Yes, it had been just as Severus had suspected – typical Gryffindor teenager logic.

“Tut tut,” Severus purred, and now he moved forwards, taking the initiative for once, yellow nails dropping featherlight to Harry’s shoulders, and then pushing him back onto the worn blankets. “You forget that many animals have to demonstrate the proper method of mounting to their mates before they can successfully complete the procedure…and even then, it takes the males several times before they really understand.”

Apparently, there was no good answer for this, because Potter’s mouth hung open stupidly for several moments, until Snape leant down and kissed him, experimenting with a short, sharp bite to Harry’s swollen bottom lip that made him cry out deliciously into his mouth. There was no mistaking it now: the hunger was as much his own as Harry’s. So, Potter would walk to his death tomorrow happily after this stint, would he? Severus would ensure that he was walking bow legged to his death, thank you very much.

“Do you even know…” Harry began to ask, tentatively.

“Do you?” Severus interrupted, his black eyes back on Harry’s. “I do believe that I am in a better position to guess though, Potter, no matter how depraved you may be, I have been depraved for a good twenty years longer.”

Somehow this sounded perfectly logical to Harry, who was happy enough to allow Severus to work out the mechanics of their situation – he had never been quite as good at such application. Of course, apparently it helped that they were in a potion master’s bedroom, and that Severus was indeed as depraved as he had announced. A healthy amount of lubricant sat in the drawer of the bedside table – from the dust that scattered from the cabinet when Snape clumsily knocked it over, however, it was evident that the contents had not been in use for quite a long time.

“Underwear, Potter. Honestly, what do you do for sense?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as he climbed back onto the bed once more with the heavy flask clasped tightly in his right hand.

“I thought we’d do it with our underwear on,” was the smart reply, with such a perfect amount of dry sarcasm that were it not for fear that Harry truly was mocking him, he might have congratulated him on it. At least the straggly youth was doing as he was told, the bed creaking angrily again as Harry struggled from one position to another. As Harry fell free, boldly, Severus couldn’t help but face the full reality of what they were doing. Was he really about to have sex with Harry Potter, in the near darkness of his old bedroom, where had spent so many years sulking about his loneliness, rather than doing something about it?

When Harry was finally naked, and Severus – with a considerable amount of hesitance – had joined him, Severus urged him onto his back with little more than a look, and a tilt of his chin. The positioning of his legs, however, was something that had to be achieved manually. It took little time to pour the lubricant onto his fingers, however; a task that often Severus had achieved single-handedly.

Harry was waiting, but for Severus the anticipation was greater still. When he moved his hand down, he found the right place but did not touch; before he began, he would seek out those green eyes, because it was their expression that he really sought – that deep, unbridled emotion that Harry so willingly conveyed. When Severus finally touched, shock and delight and a myriad of other things sparked in those magnificent eyes, and Severus knew that he was the one who had put those lights there.

“Don’t resist,” Severus suggested, before pressing one finger inside of Harry. There was on his face a perfect touch of agony – those eyes brightening intensely with it – and then Harry was breathing, steadily, and Severus slid his finger deeper, his gaze still on the youth. There was no regretting this. He would not trade it for any other possible advantage; not unless there were some way in his wishing to bring Lily back for him. This would have to be his second choice, but it was all he had. True, he still felt lecherous: Harry would never be Lily, no matter how much he pretended, but he had convinced himself to ignore it, especially at moments like this, when he slid in another finger, and Harry’s throat emitted a truly beautiful noise of exquisite pleasure, embittered with the hot tongue of pain.

Severus twisted his fingers, and with each motion Harry twirled on the bed as though dancing, causing the springs to sing at the top of their creaky, scratchy voices. This sound, mixed with Harry’s delightful moans, and the occasional thump as an overexcited motion caused the whole bed to lurch and hit the wall, was arousing to the most intense degree. It was unreal to find anything that Potter – no, Harry – was doing arousing, but Severus simply could not resist.

Although he did not know outright, Severus at least could make sensible guesses as to what to do, which was more than he could trust Harry to do. There was no doubt that his own hand was steadier and his own mind sharper. And Mulciber and Fenrir had given him a vague – if not slightly brutal – idea of the mechanics of what he was about to attempt.

Another finger made Harry cry out in delicious pain, and then lay absolutely still, taking little sharp breaths so that his body didn’t move too much. His back was stiff, his green eyes tightly closed, eyelashes wet with tears. The picture he made had not been in Severus’ mind eye, but it was so fulfilling to see it, none the less. It took Harry a while to recover this time, and when he did, finally, those green eyes refocused on Severus’, the small mouth asked ‘Now?’

“Yes,” Severus agreed, sliding his hand free of Harry so that he could lubricate it once more. His left hand fumbled with a pillow to prop up Harry’s hips, while his right replaced the bottle, then came to liberally caress his own erection, smearing it with the slippery liquid. It seemed all the more obscene to be doing this here, in Harry’s line of sight – in full view of those beautiful green eyes – but how could anything be more obscene than Harry’s rear end presented in that unreal manner. 

He had to try hard not to think of Harry as his student…he hadn’t been, technically, for many months now…but it was impossible. No sooner had he told himself not to think in that way, had the sickening realization struck him full force. Hesitation now would be condemned. It was not the time for his cowardly streak to return; Severus had been a coward far too often than he might have liked to admit. It was this knowledge in particular that had made him choose Slytherin in the end. Had he not, when his mother was being beaten by his father, gone and hidden as far away from their cries as possible? He had never done something about it, even though he was quite capable. And he had lost Lily because of his cowardice too.

So Severus did not hold back. Now that there was nothing keeping them, he moved forwards, pushing into Harry in three short movements, until he had breached the muscle and the resistance; penetrated – as Harry might choose to call it, if he wasn’t gasping and moaning in pain. The sounds he made seemed abnormal somehow; like a wounded animal, and yet somehow not. Severus might have been more afraid for him if it wasn’t for his determination that he must have done enough. There was no mistaking, however, the intense satisfaction that he felt in this act. Whether it was the Lily part of him or the Potter part of him or the Harry part of him, it was all perfect. He had achieved sexual yen.

It seemed that Harry wasn’t going to recover without a little aid, and as much as Severus was not inclined to shatter his fantasy, it was necessary. He reached down, curling his wet fingertips around Harry’s forsaken length and squeezing it tenderly. Severus didn’t watch what he was doing: he didn’t need to when he could look into those Slytherin green eyes and see it.

He stroked, once, just with the palm of his hand, rolling it in a circle as he reached the head of Harry’s arousal; and as he performed this tricky maneuver he shifted back his hips, surprising himself with the ease of the movement, and the delicious thrill of feeling the sensitive velvet of his member dragging blissfully against Harry’s insides.

Severus thrust forward, and now Harry moaned, and the sound seemed to vibrate through him wonderfully. That had felt most amazing… He was lost now. Severus drew back, pushed in again, and would have forgotten about what he was doing with his hands if one of Harry’s hadn’t closed over his, forcing it to slip up and down. Severus heard his own breath hitching, and knew what was coming before the moan forced its way from his own throat. 

Reckless abandon came over him, and now he was rocking into that silken heat. Harry was slippery and yet tight; as though made for him. The friction burned on his skin like Sectumsempra, seared into his every nerve until moaning was the least of his fears. The boy beneath him was crying out louder than before; great exclamations of sound, pleasure and hunger – and surely the whole damn world must be able to hear him making those noises! 

It was going to end. Severus knew this even as they moved together; long limbs and sweat that ran enticing paths down the ex-Seeker’s lithe and muscled torso, the sounds of the bed’s violent creaking and wall-thumping that made the house shake only the percussion and strings to their heady orchestra. It was too much; far too much for either of them, without the ability or practice to maintain this degree of pleasure. 

Harry was the first to go, by a good few seconds, his writhing built up, hips moving higher and higher with each thrust until, with a tortured cry, he came; the sticky mess oozing over both of their hands, sticking their fingers together. As Harry gasped and twisted, still trying to move his hips up to unreachable heights, the muscles of his body clenching in sporadic, wild bliss around his penis, there was no doubt that Severus’ resistance was at an end. A single difficult thrust pushed him over the edge, and Harry cried out again, his voice mixing with Severus’, their voices parched and dry and full of terrible, wonderful, deep emotion. It took a moment for them to disentangle

As they lay still together on the old, beaten bed, sank deep into the lumpy mattress, the scattered seedy blankets around them, there was a sense of strange camaraderie that both of them felt, but neither of them felt confident enough to voice. It would have been wrong under the circumstances; but they both felt it, keeping it to themselves. It was almost pleasant…but before it could get uncomfortably so the bed lurched, and one of the solid wooden legs gave way, so that the entire thing crashed over, depositing the two exhausted men on the grubby carpet, and breaking the spell.

Both got up, clearly with some effort – Severus because of sheer exhaustion, and Harry because of the growing discomfort at the base of his spine; but there was no mistaking that no matter the discomfort, and now the embarrassment, something had changed between them both.

Harry was the first to find his voice, and in as terse a tone as he could manage, he said “Snape.”

And Severus replied simply with “Potter.”


End file.
